blogging in between sunbeam naps

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About Me

I'm Katje van Loon. I'm a writer, an author, a poet, and a menace to society. I am also an activist, a feminist, a geek, a knitter/crocheter, and many other things. I wear a host of hats. I've been blogging off and on (mostly on) since 2004. One of my first blog iterations was The Canadian Pagan, and I used to go by Jagged on Blogdrive.

This blog, Amoeba Kat Musings, has existed in many different forms and permutations since 2008. It's always been my writer-blog (ie, where I blog as Katje van Loon, Writer), but as time has gone on what I want to blog about as a writer has evolved. It's still evolving.

What you will find here, likely: posts on feminism and dismantling the kyriarchy. Politics. Fat acceptance. Pictures of my dog. Posts about my husband-type-person. Poetry. Me geeking out. Knitting. Occasionally, book reviews. And much, much more.

I try to be diligent about trigger warnings, but I don't put everything behind a cut. Read with caution.

(I do put spoilers behind cuts.)

On a side note, I am also an Ambassador for Barefoot Books, along with my mom. Barefoot Books supplies high-quality children's books via its ambassadors and online shop. I have been a collector of children's books for many years, and I'm excited to grow my collection with the help of Barefoot (and to help others grow their collections, too).

If you want to become an ambassador, click on the picture below to join my team.

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Wednesday at my brother’s house

Standard

My brother lives in a boat.

That is, it’s a really long and narrow semi-legal basement suite with two bedrooms, a bathroom that used to be two closets (so, two bathrooms: one with a toilet, sink, and toiletries, and one with a shower), a kitchen that redefines the term “galley kitchen”, a bar, and lots of wood paneling.

I think it’s pretty neat-o, myself.

Upon meeting up with him in Union Square at his workplace, my brother took me to sushi (because he’s awesome, that’s why) and then we walked a lot and met up with his boyfriend, who had just bought forty dinner plates. I asked my brother if they needed forty dinner plates; he said they did not. This seems perfectly reasonable to me.

We rode the MUNI train while I talked about riding moose up in Canada and scared the other passengers. Then there were more hills. This is common for San Francisco.

The evening then consisted of a few pretty hilarious, probably very NSFW Youtube vids, embedded here for your edification, some vodka, cake, and plenty of video games.

I really love how much this woman loves Vancouver and stock footage. Not going to lie.

The above video, One Point English Lesson, is VERY NSFW and contains content of a sexual nature. You’ve been warned!

It and the video below, Cathy’s House, are both from a Japanese variety show called Vermilion Pleasure Night.

Anyway.

“A hero desires a sword…and a sword desires…TRUTH!“

We started with Soul Calibur V (for those of you who don’t know, SC is a fighting game). I’ve played SC a lot before, and a lot with my brother. At this point he and his boyfriend have become like, tournament-ranked champions or something, but to me nothing much seemed to have changed.

Brother: *chooses Pyrrha for first fight*

Me: *chooses at random*

Brother proceeds to hand ass to me on platter.

Me: Cool. So that was fun. /sarcasm

Brother: I’m sorry! I just had to play with her to get it out of the way. Here, I’ll choose someone I never play.

Brother chooses another random character and continues to kick my ass.

Lather, rinse, repeat as he changes characters as I desperately search for a character that works well with my style of playing — the Frenetic Button Mash. Finally I settle upon nun-chuk guy Maxi, who looks like a Japanese Elvis.

I proceed to hand brother’s ass tohim on platter.

Brother chooses Elysium. Maxi dies horrible death a million times over.

I think all told I won 4 rounds and he won 20. I was very happy with my number.

Journey (2012 video game) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After SC I was made to play Journey.The video game, that is. It was incredible. It affects you deeply emotionally, yet there are no words in the entire thing (perhaps that’s why it does; it’s pure, raw story). I highly recommend it. It only takes about 3 hours to beat it, and I did. I want to own it so I can play it again.

Also, as an online adventure game, it was incredibly refreshing to only meet other people who want to help you.

The next morning his cat hissed at me and bit me. No, not in a playful way. Apparently this cat hates everyone at first. That’s okay, kitty — I do too.

So, that was my Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Video games, fun and a possible tetanus shot. As it always is with my brother. When I said goodbye I promised it wouldn’t be another seven years until we saw each other again (yeah, it was that long last time).

7 thoughts on “Wednesday at my brother’s house”

TH is a gamer and by that, I mean, he is an achievement whore. (This is a new, frightening aspect to his previous geekdom.) He finds it a stain upon his soul that he must sacrifice a virgin and drink dog piss before I play a game with him. Bjt, sometimes, he can con me into it… if it’s Soul Calibur.

You see, I used to play this against my ex-husband, his little bro, and miscellaneous family members. I was never very good against them because they are not quite gamers but gods who play video games. What I learned later was that they passed some of their god-powers to me in the realm of Soul Calibur. I can kick TH’s ass in Soul Calibur.

Since number 5 came out, I have been taunting him to buy it. No go yet, but one day…

The conversation then devolved into a discussion about his poor attitude: he’s a sore loser and a sore winner. This is why I stopped playing various Mario Party games with him. But, yeah, I figure he’s just saying that because I have ripped off his Soul Calibur balls.

Oh. Oh. I mentioned it and he said, “You won’t like that game anymore. I’ll kick your ass. Beast mode has been activated.”